OWEGO, N.Y. — Upstate Shredding – Weitsman Recycling will use a $1 million state grant to help pay for construction of its new 30,000-square-foot metal recycling plant at its headquarters in Owego.
The Owego facility is located at 1 Recycle Drive in the Tioga Industrial Park, according to the company’s website.
The state awarded the funding through the Upstate Revitalization Initiative (URI), the Tioga County Department of Economic Development and Planning said in a news release it issued Thursday.
The URI is Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s business competition that media outlets dubbed the “Upstate Hunger Games.”
The $5.4 million project will create 25 new jobs in the area and generate about $30 million in annual revenue for the regional economy, according to the Tioga County release.
Upstate Shredding – Weitsman Recycling first announced plans for the scrap-processing facility in December 2014.
The company had discussed building the new operation in western Pennsylvania, but said it decided to build in its home area after New York had announced a double dose of bad economic news for the Southern Tier — a ban on fracking and no casinos for the region.
The state has since awarded a casino license to Tioga Downs Casino Racing & Entertainment.
“We are excited to build the facility at our current shredding operation in Owego as it gives us the opportunity to employ even more people here in the Southern Tier,” Adam Weitsman, president of Upstate Shredding, said in the news release.
The new media plant is a processing technology that will further process zorba, to separate out the aluminum from the “heavies,” which include copper, brass, zinc, and stainless, Tioga County said.
Zorba is a shredded mix of non-ferrous metals consisting primarily of aluminum generated by eddy-current separators and other segregation techniques.
Owego–based Upstate Shredding – Weitsman Recycling describes itself as “the East Coast’s largest privately held scrap-metal processor.”
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com